


jihyo and tzuyu

by lgbtwice



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: 1980s, Drama, F/F, High School, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-02 17:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19446238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lgbtwice/pseuds/lgbtwice
Summary: based off of eleanor and park by rainbow rowell.where jihyo and tzuyu are two seventeen year olds, forced to sit together on a school bus in 1980s south korea.





	jihyo and tzuyu

**tzuyu**

none of tzuyu’s tapes were enough to drown out the commotion of the back of the bus. tzuyu presses her headphones against her head until all she could hear was her loud music though her cheap-ass headphones. tomorrow she would bring a screamo mix or something with loud noises that could distract her from the annoying bus ride. maybe she could make a special tape for the bus ride that consisted of wailing and loud bangs. she could get back into new wave in december, once she gets her driver’s license. tzuyu's parents had already decided that tzuyu could have her mom’s car, and she had already been saving up to get a new tape deck. maybe once she started to drive to school, she could listen to whatever she wanted or maybe not even anything, and maybe she’ll be able to sleep in for five more minutes.

‘that's not a real thing,’ someone yelled from behind her.

‘bro, it fucking is,’ chaeyoung shouted back. ‘the 52-hertz whale, man, it’s the loneliest whale alive. imagine being that fucking lonely…’

‘bullshit.’

‘you're fucking bullshit,’ chaeyoung said. ‘tzuyu! hey, tzuyu.’

tzuyu heard her, but she didn’t answer. most of the time, if you ignored chaeyoung for a minute or so, she moved onto someone else. knowing this was 70 percent of surviving with chaeyoung as your neighbor. the other 30 percent was just keeping your head down … tzuyu had forgotten that last part. a ball of paper hit her in the back of the head.

‘those were my zoology notes, chaeyoung,’ mina said.

‘i’m sorry, baby,’ chaeyoung said. ‘i’ll teach you about zoology. what do you need to know?’

‘teach her about the whale,’ somebody said.

‘TZUYU!’ chaeyoung shouted.

tzuyu pulled off her headphones and turned to the back of the bus. chaeyoung was in the last seat. even sitting, her head practically couldn't be seen from the seat divider. chaeyoung had always looked like she was surrounded by oversized furniture. she’d looked like a toddler since the seventh grade, and that was after hitting her growth spurt. slightly after. 

sometimes tzuyu wondered if chaeyoung was with mina because she made her look remotely normal. most of the girls from the school were weird, but mina was the gamer girl of the school. arcade included. back in middle school, someone had tried to give chaeyoung shit about how she better not have sex with mina because if she did, mina would just speak in cheat codes.

  
‘you would basically be having sex with an arcade machine,’ the guy said. chaeyoung broke her little finger on the guy’s face.

when tzuyu’s dad heard, he said, ‘someone needs to teach that son kid how to make a fist.’

tzuyu hoped nobody ever would. the guy chaeyoung hit couldn’t open his eyes for a week or two. tzuyu tossed mina her balled-up homework. chaeyoung caught it for her and handed it to her with a kiss on the cheek.

‘tzuyu,’ chaeyoung said, ‘tell momo about the fucking lonely whale.’

‘i don’t know anything about it, chaeyoung.’ tzuyu sighed.

‘you know it’s a real thing, right?’

‘i’ve heard of it before, i guess.’

‘there,’ chaeyoung said. she looked for something to throw at momo, but couldn’t find anything. she just pointed instead. ‘i fucking told you so.’

‘what the fuck does chou know about a lonely whale?’ momo said.

‘are you stupid or dumb?’ chaeyoung said. ‘she’s fucking lonely, no offense tzuyu, bro.’

momo looked at tzuyu carefully. tzuyu smiled and closed her eyes. ‘yeah, i guess i can see that,’ momo said. ‘i always thought you were just a loser.’

‘shit, momo,’ chaeyoung said, ‘you’re such a fucking bitch.’

tzuyu managed another smile and slunk back into her seat, putting her headphones back on and cranking up the volume. she could still hear chaeyoung and momo, four seats behind her.

‘but what’s the point?’ momo asked.

‘dude, would you want to be calling other whales and get no response? they’re in that fucking huge ass ocean, man. imagine being that bastard losing his shit every day.’

  
tzuyu noticed the new girl at about the same time everybody did. she was standing at the front of the bus, next to the first available seat. the kid sitting there by himself, a freshman. put his bag down on the seat beside him, then looked the other way. down the aisle, anybody who was sitting alone moved to the edge of their seats, giving the girl judgmental looks. tzuyu heard mina snicker; she lived for this kind of stuff. the girl took a deep breath and walked down the aisle. no one would look at her. tzuyu tried not to, but it was kind of a fucked-up situation.

the girl just looked like exactly the sort of person this would happen to. not just new – but kind of big … well bigger than what is normal in their society and awkward. with crazy hair, badly dyed red on her ends with lightly faded red on top with her roots showing. and she was dressed like … like she wanted people to pay attention to her. or well maybe like she didn’t get what a mess she looked like. she had on a dirty band shirt, with weird necklaces hanging around her neck and headbands wrapped around her wrists. she reminded tzuyu of when little kids got hold of barbies and they just put anything on them or when you hit the random button when customizing your video game character.

the bus came to a stop again, and a bunch more kids got on. they pushed past the girl, knocking into her, and piled into their own seats. that was the thing – everyone on the bus had a seat already. they’ve all claimed one on the first day of school. people like tzuyu who were thankful to have a whole seat to themselves weren’t going to give that up now. not for someone like this especially. tzuyu looked back up at the girl. she was just standing there.

‘hey, you,’ the bus driver yelled, ‘sit down.’

the girl started moving toward the back of the bus. right into the eye of the storm. fuck, tzuyu thought, stop. turn around. she could feel chaeyoung and momo sharpening their tongue as she got closer. tzuyu tried again to look away. just then the girl spotted an empty seat just across from tzuyu. her face lit with relief, and she rushed toward it.

  
‘hey,’ mina said sharply.

the girl kept moving.

‘hey,’ mina said, ‘idiot.’

chaeyoung started laughing. her friends fell in a couple of seconds after her.

‘you can’t sit there,’ mina said. ‘that’s sana’s seat.’

the girl stopped and looked up at mina, then looked back at the empty seat.

‘sit down,’ the driver yelped from the front.

‘i have to sit,’ the girl said to mina in a firm, yet calming voice.

‘and that is not my problem,’ mina snapped.

the bus jolted, and the girl rocked back with it to keep from falling. tzuyu tried to turn the volume up on her walkman, but somehow it was already all the way up. she looked back at the girl; it looked like she was about to start to cry. before tzuyu even decided to do it, she scooted toward the window.

‘sit down,’ she said. it came out harshly. the girl turned to her as if she couldn't tell whether she was another asshole or what. ‘fucking hell,’ tzuyu said softly, nodding to the space next to her, ‘just sit down.’

the girl finally sat down. she didn’t say anything – thank god, she didn’t thank her– and she left six inches of space on the seat between them. tzuyu turned toward the window and waited for a pile of shit to hit the fan.

**jihyo**

jihyo weighed her options:

  1. she could always walk home from school. the pros of that would be: exercise, a pink hue on her full cheeks, and some alone time with herself. the cons of walking were: she had no idea what her new address yet, she didn't even have an idea of the general direction she could to start walking.
  2. she could call her mom and ask for a ride from her. the pros of doing this: a lot of them. cons: her mom doesn’t have a phone. nor a car.
  3. maybe she could call her dad. as if he would answer.
  4. she could call her grandma. maybe just to say hi and catch up with the older woman.
  5. she could always fall off the face of the earth... seems like too much work



jihyo was sitting on the stone staircase that was in front of the school, staring out at the row of yellow buses, she started to count them. she counted up to 10 buses until her bus was right there. no. 077. even if jihyo avoided the bus today, even if a fairy godmother suddenly showed up with a carriage made out pumpkin, she would still have to find a way to get back to school the next morning. it’s not like the assholes on the bus are going to wake up on the right side of their beds anytime soon. hell, jihyo wouldn’t be surprised if they started to crawl out of their skin the next time she saw them.

the one girl in the back with the brown hair and the beige trench coat? one could practically see the spiked horns hidden in her bangs. and her girlfriend was possibly a member of the circus. that girl, well… all of them hated jihyo before they’d even laid their judgmental eyes on her. it was like jihyo had murdered their families in a past life.

jihyo couldn’t tell if the taiwanese chick who had finally let her sit down was one of the demons, or whether she was just really dumb. (well not dumb but like... she was in all of jihyo’s honors classes.) jihyo’s mom had insisted that at the new school she would be put in honors classes. her mom would die when she saw how bad jihyo’s grades were from last year in the eleventh grade.

‘this can’t be a surprise to you, mrs. park,` the counselor said. funny, jihyo thought, one would be surprised about what could even be a surprise to her at this point.

whatever. maybe jihyo could just stare at the sky just as easily in honors classes. there were just as many windows as in regular classes. well if she ever even came back to this piece of shit called school. maybe if she ever even got home from the flesh-eating demons that lived on her bus. jihyo couldn’t tell her mom about the bus ordeal since her mom had already told her that she didn’t have to ride the bus. last night, when she was helping jihyo unpack her things...

‘khunyoung said he’ll take you,’ her mom said. ‘it wouldn't be a problem since it’s on his way to work.’

‘well is he going to make me ride in the back of his truck?’

‘you know he’s just trying to make peace, jihyo. didn’t you promised that you try, too.’

‘it would be easier for me to make peace from a far distance.’

‘i already told him that you were ready to be part of this family.’

‘i am already part of this family. i am like a key member of this family.’

‘jihyo,’ her mom said. ‘can you please.’

‘mom, i will just ride the bus,’ jihyo had said. ‘it won't be a big deal. i can meet people.’

hilarious, jihyo thought now. how wrong she was. jihyo’s bus was going about to leave soon. the other buses were already pulling away leaving jihyo in the dust behind them. someone ran down the steps next to jihyo and accidentally kicked her bag. jihyo pulled it out of the way and was started to say sorry but just her luck, it was that stupid taiwanese girl, who frowned when she saw that it was jihyo. jihyo frowned right back at her, and she ran ahead.

oh, great, jihyo thought. the monsters of the underworld will not starve on my watch.

**Author's Note:**

> please enjoy!!


End file.
